Flak (1944)

[Music] this picture is for you not yet for all overseas these are planes flying through countries this is no attempt to minimize the danger [Music] good enough to lay a chill on a plane five miles up flying 300 miles an hour [Music] intelligence for instance to begin taking evasive action three minutes off the enemy coast it will consist of 20 degree changes in course late at least every 30 seconds and held for at least 10 seconds here you are to gain a thousand feet in altitude arriving at your initial point make a 90 degree change of course lose a thousand feet and continue evasive action until you start your bombing run positive statements the men in this room prefer it that way they've learned that a bomber formation can't just take flank as it comes they know that these briefing room statements are based on a scientific study and they understand why evasive action must be flown exactly as planned so those of you who do not know can get the same understanding let's have a good look at this flight business enemy anti-aircraft weapons vary from heavy guns like the German 88 millimeter flag the German 105 millimeter flak the Japanese 75 millimeter to small caliber automatic weapons like the German 20 millimeter or the Japanese 25 millimeter triple pompom there is a great difference in methods of fire between the heavy gun and the small caliber automatic weapon the heavy gun destroys the aircraft by using a time few shell to put a large explosive burst in the near vicinity of the target it must be and is accurate to high altitudes the automatic weapon depends on a dense concentration of fire flexibly controlled it's shells explode when they actually hit the target why our heavy guns shell takes roughly one second to climb 1,000 feet it would take then 27 seconds for a shell to reach the 27 thousand foot level this plane represents a bomber formation flying 200 miles per hour if the gun is aimed directly at the planes at the time the shell is fired almost two miles before their altitude firing on the crosshair the site keeps tracking it continuously obtaining its direction and angular height while a stereoscopic rangefinder determines the altitude at night or in bad weather the aircraft may be tracked solely by radar by optical sight or by radar the information is fed by electric cable to a director this mechanical quizzed kid digests the data and automatically computes the right lead setting the guns so they will fire not at where the target is now but at where it will be at the end of the shells time of flight the director will then go on automatically adjusting and setting the guns as long as the planes remain in range of course guns do not fire singly but in batteries of four or six our symbol now represents the heavier fire of a whole battery making a continuous pattern of bursts along the planes course often several batteries are within range and all fire with the proper lead as produced by their own fire control instruments each battery maintains predicted fire until it can no longer the attacking planes but new batteries take up the firing as soon as they come within range this is called continuously pointed fire this is what continuously control a master command post directs the fire of several batteries in the region each gun symbol represents an entire battery the target cited Direction angular height and altitude readings are taken at several points along its course based on these readings an actual prediction is made as to where the target will be in the sky a certain number of seconds later and each battery is informed each adjust its gun so the concentrated fire will strike the point of prediction at the given time a new prediction is in the making the guns are laid on the new point and another concentration set on its way bursts occur practically simultaneously not as accurate as continuously pointed fire the predicted concentration has greater volume from the aircraft predicted concentrations appear as groups of 60-seconds in contrast to continuously pointed fire spaces between successive concentrations of birds in both these kinds of fire the gunner is up against his greatest weakness prediction his firing data can never be more than the assumed future course of the target in continuously pointed fire the gunner must get you in his sights and obtain your altitude at least five seconds consumed here then the director must make its calculations and set the guns roughly another five seconds then the shell climbing it approximately hits thousand feet per second chokes up 25 more continuing your present flight path for 35 seconds would place you right at the predicted point but making a change after 25 seconds leaves the flak bursting out of course you are no longer flying in addition the Gunners next prediction must be refigured to fit your new course before he can fire again in predicted concentrations the gunner has an even longer time lap to contend with for plotting the targets course 25 seconds for making a prediction 5 seconds for the telephoning and actual setting of the guns of the various batteries 10 more adding 25 seconds for approximate time of flight gives us a total of 65 seconds however by flying planned evasive action that is a point you'll never reach you can see from this that if you knew when to make changes and what changes to make you can continuously defeat the predictions well that's what flak intelligence is figured out as a rule of thumb waiting to make changes you're given this path for a greater number of seconds then you are up thousands of feet in other words flying at 30,000 feet make a change at least every 30 seconds in planning what kind of changes to make we must avoid ineffective evasion do not fly a sinuous course Illustrated here because such small regular variations can be averaged out the same is true for small regular changes in altitude even a constantly curving course must not be maintained for too many seconds at your altitude because the newer directors can predict on such a curve they can also predict on constant changes of altitude when you consider the overall pattern of an evasive course in the sky you can see that nervous minor changes are worthless instead compromising between what confuses Gunners the most and upsets your information the least we plan this sort of evasive action changes in course of a minimum of 20 degrees changes in altitude of greater than 500 feet the two changes made simultaneously whenever your formation permits and never held longer than a number of seconds which corresponds to your altitude in thousands of feet you will be told to start this planned evasive action three minutes before reaching a defended enemy area that's because you have no way of knowing when they're gonna get you in his sights to ensure against flying straight and level long enough for the gunner to get off even one accurate prediction evasive action is started before you're in range if for any reason accurately predicted fire is impossible the enemy can still resort to a third type of fire called barrage here the flak is fired into a certain volume of sky very roughly predicted the individual bursts are inaccurate but with all guns trained on this zone a dense pattern is formed to force the aircraft to fly through flat filled space the barrage is usually laid in front of the estimated bomb release line the chances of being hidden a barrage are not as great as any other two types of fire since accurate prediction has been sacrificed for volume of fire evasive action will not carry the plane out of the barrage or affect its chances of being hit the sooner the aircraft flies through the better remember the barrage hangs in one region of sky and is not predicted for any particular aircrafts course however evasive action during the approach to the target can upset the enemy's effort to effective locate his barrage if the defense knew you're a bomb run long in advance the barrage could more effectively be placed in your path evasive action will add to his difficulties sure we know it's easy to advise and we know that with a sky full of bursts barrage fire looks like the worst of them all first burst you see already hang in the sky are no longer dangerous and second the barrage fire is actually the least accurate of the three controlled methods by turning a way to find another approach you only keep yourself in the target area for a longer time thereby exposing yourself to additional fire the tactics we've seen so far we're designed for heavy flag at high altitudes our plan for high altitude flak is quite accurate at 15,000 feet but it becomes less accurate with altitude so that at 20,000 feet it is only one half as accurate as it was at 15,000 feet at 25,000 feet its accuracy is again reduced by one half at 30,000 feet accuracy again is cut in half in general FLAC accuracy is reduced by one half for every 5,000 feet increase in altitude a common belief is that a magic medium altitude exists where every flag has not yet become effective and light flak cannot reach how long this legend is can be learned in a brief examination of the enemy's major guns all white flag is effective up to 4,000 feet and some special types are effective up to 10,000 heavy flak becomes effective at about 3,000 feet lowest level for which it's time fuses can be set then goes on to reach as high as 37,000 feet this means that a medium altitude mission say just about 10,000 feet offers protection only against light flak when we know that both light and heavy can be expected the safest altitude is either as high as possible or as low as possible right down on the deck flying on the deck renders heavy guns impotent and at the same time gives the light automatic weapons their toughest possible traversing job because of your high angular velocity it also enables you to surprise anti-aircraft defenses by making use of defilade caused by trees houses and low hills further it affords a chance to come in on enemy positions with forward guns blazing from those at high altitude the enemy's automatic weapons do not rely on directors or with the great decrease in the range with which they deal for leading problem becomes almost as rapid as the duck hunters and when the time flights so short gentle 20 degree changes will turn ducks or bombers into clay pigeons so against light flag your protection lies in maximum speed combined with all the sudden alterations in the direction of flight but impossible with your formation skin turns purposing corkscrews side slipping anything which will keep those Gunners guessing yes keep those Gunners guessing roots tuning from the target the initial point and the bomb run all must be planned to take advantage of the latest available flack intelligence and even more important all must then be flown exactly as planned [Music] you

Channel: AIRBOYD

Views: 1,742,121

Rating: 4.9120879 out of 5

Keywords: aviation, flying, planes, plane, pilot, airboyd, #airboyd, yt:quality=high, avgeek, german flak, world war, world war 2, world war 2 oversimplified, german flak vest, german flak 88, german flak gun, german flak guns in action, german flak cannon, german flak 20mm, german flak guns ww2, german flak ww2, german flak 88 firing

Id: yRd_AW1aZ8M

Length: 17min 6sec (1026 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 20 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ScoobyDewbieDude]

Opening the video: “17 minutes? Not gonna watch the whole thing, I’ll tell ya that.”

5 minutes in: “wow this is really interesting.”

17 minutes in: “oh wow, I watched the whole thing, didn’t even realize.”

[u/nightgerbil]

great vid

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